


Why Should I Wake Up?

by Evealle



Series: Why Should I Wake Up? [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Stars and Stripes, Whovengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:19:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evealle/pseuds/Evealle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve finds happiness where he least expects it, but how complete is it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Should I Wake Up?

Steve meets her in a bar, a low key pub with a band playing smooth jazz. He doesn’t know what comes over him, but he can’t stop looking at her. She’s sitting alone, idly sipping her drink, and in a moment of strangely placed courage, he goes up to talk to her. All evening he’s felt like he’s supposed to be somewhere else, but he just can’t remember. He has another unusual feeling; he wants to dance. He doesn’t dance. He doesn’t know how. But he goes up and asks her to dance with him.

More precisely, he asks her if she’ll teach him how. She laughs at him and makes a comment about a grown man like him not knowing how to dance. He gives a rueful smile and holds out his hand hopefully. She takes it. They step out onto the dance floor, and she spends the evening trying to instruct him in some basic steps and to encourage him to feel the rhythm of the music. He does his best but doesn’t prove to be a great dancer. But they laugh as he tries to learn. And he holds her as close as he feels is appropriate. And she smiles a lot. And it’s a very good evening, and at the end of it she gives him her number and the invitation to call her “whenever.”

* * *

Two days later, he bumps into her in a shop, which is a strange kind of  coincidence that makes him wonder if there’s such a thing as destiny. Mostly because he hasn't been able to stop thinking of her for those entire two days separating their last meeting. “Fancy seeing you here,” he says, congratulating himself on such a smooth delivery of such an  _oh-so-original_  phrase.

“You never called me,” Martha accuses him in a teasing voice.

“Would you believe me if I said that it was literally the first thing I was planning on doing when I got home?” He knows she won’t because  _honestly_ , but he actually was planning that.

“Never in a million years,” she grins.

“Well, it’s only been two days,” he reminds her helplessly.

She shrugs. “I wanted to talk to you.”

That makes him smile. Women have never wanted to just  _talk_ with him before. Lately they all seem to speak to him with ulterior motives, before that they wouldn’t acknowledge him at all. “We could talk now,” he suggests, even though chatting the middle of a store between crates of potatoes and suspicious looking fruit isn’t exactly ideal, he knows.

“Oh no, Captain,” she shakes her head. “I’ve no intention of staying stood here all night. It's been a long day, and it's high time I was home for supper and a bath. You’ll have to phone me and ask me out or something.” Martha grins again. She's cheeky. He likes it. 

“Oh, okay,” he stammers, trying not to picture her in the bath. This has never been his area of expertise, but from the tone of her voice it sounds like she’s flirting with him. Which sort of makes sense, given the way their relationship has been going. He just wishes he knew how to respond. Suavely. 

“Though I guess…” She begins after a moment’s hesitation, “you could come and have dinner with me. I can cook.”

* * *

He calls her as soon as he gets home because he remembered something he wanted to tell her, a continuation of their discussion about the _Star Spangled War Stories_. She laughs as he launches straight into his point as soon as she answers the phone, and she counters with an idea of her own. They stay on the phone for nearly an hour, even though they just saw each other. He wishes he’d had the nerve to kiss her before he left her house after a frankly wonderful dinner. But even as Captain America he doesn’t have all the courage he wishes he had. 

He does ask her out before he hangs up, however.

They go on a proper date. Then another and another. He falls in love with her. He tells her this, shyly, and she doesn’t return the sentiment until the next time they meet when she runs to him and throws her arms around his neck, beaming as she says in his ear, “I love you too.” He grins into her shoulder, lifting her off the ground in an embrace.

He draws her one weekend, spending hours devoted to filling pages of his sketchbook with sketch after sketch of her face, her hands, her figure, pencil tracing out the lines that his eyes have memorized. They listen to the radio, and she dances a little as he looks on, copying out willowy charcoal figures onto the thin paper in an attempt to catch the grace of her movement. He smiles at his work, but, to be fair, he stares at her so much that he  _should_  be able to capture her likeness this well. She laughs when he shows the pictures to her.

“You’ve made me too pretty,” she protests.

He smiles gently. “That’s how I see you.” And he kisses her cheek.

He buys a small ring with a pale gemstone because one thing he’s figured out from this crazy life of his is that you should hold onto the things that mean a lot to you. He carries it around in its small box for over a week, trying to find a good time to give it to her. He plans to find somewhere nice where they can have dinner so that he can have a proper setting at least, but then they’re walking together one night, and it’s been such a nice evening, and he feels so good about everything – life, them – that he stops and turns to her. She smiles expectantly up at him, half expecting to be kissed or asked if she thinks there’s meaning to any of it – life, them. Neither the kissing nor the deep questions is uncommon for their dates.

He starts to ramble, a stammer in his voice. He tells her how much she’s changed his life, how he never realized you could be so in love with someone, and how if he fears anything it’s that he might lose her. She stares up at him, stunned and speechless, but he keeps on, blushing furiously because he knows he must sound a complete fool.

“So, I just wondered if you might possibly – would you…marry me?”

She grins suddenly. “Of course I will, without a doubt.” And she pulls him down to kiss her.

They’re back at his apartment. It’s the next day. She’s just made tea, and she hands him a mug, caressing his hair fondly, her ring – which, despite his complete ignorance when it came to picking it out, she says she loves – nearly catching in his blonde locks. He smiles as they settle on the couch together, and, God help him, he’s never felt so happy.

Sounds of a roaring and the staticy voice of an announcer filter through the apartment. Steve glances at the wall behind him. The neighbors always turn the volume up so loud. Martha sets her cup down and leans against his chest. The noise grows louder, and Steve frowns. Suddenly, Martha sits up, twisting round to look at him. “Oh!” She cries like she’s just remembered. “You’ve got to get to the baseball game.” 

His frown deepens as he looks at her. She’s ushering him up off the couch, and they can hear every word of the announcer’s now. It no longer sounds like it’s coming from next door but from there in that room. “What game?”

She hands him his battered leather jacket. There’s blood on it. “Go on,” she urges.

They hear the sharp crack of a bat, and the crowd cheers. “No,” he shakes his head, staring in bewilderment at the coat in his hands. “I’ve been to this game already. It was years ago, before I met you.” She just smiles at him. His vision’s grainy, and he can’t quite see straight. He blinks, trying to get the room back in focus. Things are going dark now, or maybe he’s going blind.

He hears her voice distorted in his ears as the room twists around him. “I don’t want you to miss it.” Then everything goes black for a second.

* * *

 

His eyelids flutter open, and the light returns. He can still hear the game, and a crease appears in his forehead. He sits up. He’s in a hospital room, softly lit with a gentle breeze coming from the open window. It smells wrong. He stares around, taking it all in. How did he get here? What is going on? The door opens and woman enters as he looks up expectantly. His face falls.

“Morning,” she smiles. Then, glancing at her watch, “or should I say afternoon?”

“Where am I?” Steve asks in a low voice. His throat feels strange, and it hurts to talk.

Her voice is soothing. “You’re in a recovery room in New York City.”

He pauses, studying the room. He wants to know where Martha has gone. Where his apartment has gone. Why he feels so stiff and sore. There's something different about the nosies coming from the window. And the light hurts his eyes. “Where am I really?” She shakes her head, looking flustered. Something is very, very wrong here. He wonders if he's been drugged, if there was a - maybe Hydra...Even his brain feels sluggish. This is all wrong.

He at the nurse. “The game. It’s from May 1941. I know ‘cause I was there.” He rises to his feet. “Now I’m gonna ask you again. Where am I?”

“Captain Rogers – “ She begins before he cuts her off angrily.

“Who are you?” Steve can see that she’s uneasy, but it’s nothing compared to the fear that’s racing through his mind.The fear that immediately as two men burst through the door. Without thinking, he grabs them and throws them against the wall. It crashes down, revealing the pretense of the scene that he had suspected. He’s clearly not in a hospital. He crashes through the double doors just beyond the fake room, running from the building, and stumbling out onto a busy street.

He’s disoriented, panicked, so he runs. His legs feel strange, like maybe he’s been drugged. He doesn’t care about the people he’s knocked down or the cars that honk at him. Steve stops in the middle of Times Square, unable to handle it anymore. The noise is echoing in his ears, making his head hurt even more. His head is spinning as he takes it all in. He feels dizzy and his breath is coming in gasps, paining his lungs. Black cars have surrounded him, blocking off the traffic. Someone’s talking to him, and he’s barely listening because it’s all so different and  _wrong_. “We thought it would be best to break it to you gently.”

“Break what?” Steve asks.

“You’ve been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years.”  _No._  That couldn’t be true. How could anyone sleep that long? That couldn't be possible? And yet, he himself - the Super Soldier, miracle of science that he was - is full of unpredictable possibilities thanks to the serum. And yet surely he would have known he was asleep. Somehow. Instead, he had felt like he'd been living a very normal and fulfilled life. So, unless he had fallen into that sleep during that last weird afternoon with Martha...

He couldn’t have dreamed it all. This strange city must be the dream, this alien new world. All he has to do is get back to that bar or to his apartment and it would all be fine, somehow. He would wake up then, back in his  _actual_  life with Martha. This isn’t where he belongs. He is asleep right now, dreaming this new New York and all these strange people. 

But he’s remembered that HYDRA aircraft about to crash into the ice. How could he have gotten from there back to New York and that bar where he had met her? He couldn't remember anything about the time in between those two occurrences. Obviously his time with her would have had to all have been a dream because how could his real life ever go that well? He knows that this man must be telling him the truth because it all makes sense. But it hurts him, a distinct pain in his chest. He takes deep breaths, wishing he could either wake fully and forget everything he dreamed or fall back asleep and return to that dreamland.

“You gonna be okay?” 

Steve looks at the city around him. “Yeah. Yeah.” He sighs. “It’s just…I was having such a nice dream.” 


End file.
